Some see a regular Jetsonian future of, if not jetpacks and flying cars, at least homes integrated seamlessly with a networked world. Others see the demands as too low and the challenges too high to expect any but incremental changes.

The report, part of the Future of the Internet/Imagining the Internet series, surveyed "1,021 experts and analysts from the tech world, universities, government agencies, corporations, and other stakeholders" on how close we are to a "smart" world, one which uses energy-efficient “smart structures,” integrated appliances and automobiles and “smart grids” that enable a more efficient delivery of electricity and water.

Comme ci, comme ça

"The result was a fairly even split," said Janna Anderson, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, "between those who agreed that energy- and money-saving 'smart systems' will be significantly closer to reality in people’s homes by 2020 and those who said such homes will still remain a marketing mirage."

Fifty-one percent of respondents agreed with this statement in the survey:

By 2020, the connected household has become a model of efficiency, as people are able to manage consumption of resources (electricity, water, food, even bandwidth) in ways that place less of a burden on the environment while saving households money. Thanks to what is known as "smart systems," the Home of the Future that has often been foretold is coming closer and closer to becoming a reality.

Forty-nine percent agreed with the opposing statement:

By 2020, most initiatives to embed IP-enabled devices in the home have failed due to difficulties in gaining consumer trust and because of the complexities in using new services. As a result, the home of 2020 looks about the same as the home of 2011 in terms of resource consumption and management. Once again, the Home of the Future does not come to resemble the future projected in the recent past.

On the pro side was David Weinberger, a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. “Homes will get more efficient because it will cost more and more to waste energy," he said. "The devices will become simpler because no one likes being outsmarted by their thermostat."

The skeptics included Charlie Firestone, executive director of the Communications and Society Program at the Aspen Institute. “Smart homes are on their way, but this development is being delayed—not so much by lack of trust as by lack of alignment of the key players—utilities, ISPs, manufacturers.”

The future is now!

Cisco predicts there will be 25 billion connected devices in 2015 and 50 billion by 2020, the report reminds us. The rush to embrace the "Internet of Things" has been great in the past several years, for, among other reasons, the way integrated devices can keep constant track of their user's habits, one of the most valuable coins currently in circulation. IBM, for instance, has over 2,000 projects in its "Smarter Planet" initiative.

Sensors in consumer products like wine track deliveries and help tighten logistics. From rice cookers to cattle tags, small bits of the Web are talking to each other, or that's the cant at any rate. And yet less than half of Americans own smartphones.

The notion that people in general would want an integrated home is an appealing one to people who are personally inspired by the excitement of technological potential—even moreso perhaps to the people who stand to make serious cash out of the deal, companies like Panasonic (whose rice cooker can allegedly get recipes from your Android), Cisco (who makes the networking tech), IBM (who is selling sensors and consulting to governments from Dubuque to Rio) and General Electric (who is working on networked hospital suites). But many people want their homes to remain an island of stability and, well, hominess.

"People don’t seem to want this stuff very much," said Tracy Rolling, product user-experience evangelist (seriously?) for Nokia. "They like for their homes to be dumb. How many people do you know who have bought one of those alarm-clock coffee pots, loved them for a month, and then stopped using the alarm-clock feature all together? Smart homes are like that on a grand scale.”

The future is... well, mostly it's still now

Many of the respondents to the survey outlined structural impediments to the creation of integrated home/appliance/energy systems.

"Barriers include... economic weakness, economic uncertainties, building codes, lack of standardization, lack of oversight/regulation (which actually leads to an atmosphere of business confidence), lack of tested, mature technologies, and resistance from entrenched technologies,” said Donald G. Barnes, visiting professor at Guangxi University in China, formerly director of the Science Advisory Board at US Environmental Protection Agency.

"Proprietary technology and a lack of organized protocols and formats means that this is not going to take off for a very, very long time," added Rolling.

Some respondents did believe the future holds some whiz-kid surprises for householders, but even they qualified those expectations. It will be a long time until such networks are financially viable, some said. Others mentioned the "gremlins" that get into even the best-made systems as those systems grow in complexity.

If a "home of the future" ever does become a reality, one worry could be that the same thing will happen at home that happened in the University of Colorado system. When the Internet caved in for well over a week during finals, some professors experienced a perfect storm of technological dependency and technological ignorance (they couldn't do their job without the technology but they had not backed up a thing they did).

I see the concept of the home of the future as being stuck in the same place it has been since Walt Disney first tried to the concept in the 60's. Adding technology invariable pushes the costs of goods higher. Technology changes to quickly for a regular person to be able to afford the investment. Few people will be willing to afford the investment when the risk of obsolescence is so real. I see few circumstances where an investment in technology actually saves money. There are lots of things I personally would rather spend my money on than smart appliances. I cannot see any real value they would bring to my life or that of my family. I imagine there are many like me, and until the value is real it will be a dream or something obtainable only by wealthy persons who have the means to be early adopters

I live in a decidedly stupid home. It has up to date mechanicals and appliances, most everything new in the last 2 years - but not a single one of them can talk to any others, and none of them are connected to a network, let alone the internet. Am I missing out somehow? Do these things need to talk to each other to be high efficiency? No. Does my dishwasher need to talk to the electrical grid in order to conserve electricity and fail to dry my dishes? Nope, it does that all on it's own. Does my TV need to talk to the coffee pot in order to know that it should draw no current when it's off? No.

If I want to conserve, and see that as a positive goal, I will set my thermostat higher (or lower depending on the season), use less water, recycle and compost, use targeted lighting sparingly, and make sure that computers and entertainment units sleep properly when not used, or are plugged into a power strip I can turn off. I fail to see how smart connected devices will help with any of this.

I'm on the side of those that expect the incremental changes. Everything still has that novelty item feel (like the alarm clock coffee makers). I do see things like the control over the utilities and such, but I see that as more of a background thing. It won't result in dramatic changes for most people.

----I also had to read "From rice cookers to cattle tags, small bits of the Web are talking to each other, or that's the cant at any rate." twice until I remembered that "cant" is a noun. Thanks for refreshing my vocabulary!

Why would I invenst tens of thousands in "smart" home equipment that will be obsolete within a few years with no hope of easy upgrade? Has anyone actually tried to rewire a north american house? Building codes and designs are just not intended to be upgradable short of re'n're, remove and redo.

I for one, do not want a "smart" house. I do not desire to have my entire life recorded. You may say, "What's the problem? Do you have something to hide?" Well, who determines what is "normal"? What might be normal today is frowned upon tomorrow. Let's say I'm overweight and live in NYC, do I need Mayor Bloomburg to watch and make sure I stick to my diet? Let's say I'm a member of a small religious group that is treated prejudicially by the cilture at large, do I want to be monitored? Once data is recorded it is probably there forever, and no matter what so called legal protections are in place it can be and will be abused. No, no "smart" home for me.

Smart grids probably will get more common, especially in areas where the grid is pushing its limits. I don't see them getting universal.

It's possible someone will finally come up with a decent product that ties together all the entertainment devices in the living room in a smart way. It's amazing no one has figured this out yet. Much as I hate the thought, it might be Apple. Although it could also be someone like Sonos, expanding from their audio system.

Smart thermostats are getting more common, that will continue, including online accessibility. Also not to become a standard.

I don't see a lot of other automation coming to most homes. It requires too much set-up, for too little benefit. I say this as someone who has set up a fair amount of automation. It's fun for me, because I like to tinker with it. And I have kept it from getting in the way. But in terms of how it actually makes things better for other people in the house? Not objectively worth the time, effort, and money, for people who do not actually enjoy spending their time learning this stuff. There could be a revolution in terms of the UI of setting this stuff up, but it's hard for me to imagine what that would look like.

I cant wait for my internet bill to skyrocket as 1 of 2 things happen. 1) my refrigerator causes me to go over my data limit for the month.2) my stove tries to burn me because someone wrote a trojan that infected my coffeepot using an exploit that was found 2 years ago but hasnt been fixed yet, which then wrote a code dump to the refrigerator causing all my food to go bad, and then wrote to the oven telling it that when it sensed the door being opened to crank the heat up to the max it can.

I cant wait for my internet bill to skyrocket as 1 of 2 things happen. 1) my refrigerator causes me to go over my data limit for the month.2) my stove tries to burn me because someone wrote a trojan that infected my coffeepot using an exploit that was found 2 years ago but hasnt been fixed yet, which then wrote a code dump to the refrigerator causing all my food to go bad, and then wrote to the oven telling it that when it sensed the door being opened to crank the heat up to the max it can.

With no real standards in the protocols, there can't be any reasonable amount of security. What you describe, while in jest, is a very real threat in my opinion.

I'll consider buying a refrigerator that can track my eating habits and send me a grocery list when I'm comfortable that my privacy is is being considered and that it is secure enough to not be an easy target for the bored and pathological.

I cant wait for my internet bill to skyrocket as 1 of 2 things happen. 1) my refrigerator causes me to go over my data limit for the month.2) my stove tries to burn me because someone wrote a trojan that infected my coffeepot using an exploit that was found 2 years ago but hasnt been fixed yet, which then wrote a code dump to the refrigerator causing all my food to go bad, and then wrote to the oven telling it that when it sensed the door being opened to crank the heat up to the max it can.

With no real standards in the protocols, there can't be any reasonable amount of security. What you describe, while in jest, is a very real threat in my opinion.

See http://www.homeclimatecontrol.com/ and http://diy-zoning.sourceforge.net/. You could EASILY have tight, reliable, energy-efficient*, per-room climate control for your home or apartment**. This kind of system is either extremely sub-standard or nonexistent commercially mostly because it's TOO CHEAP and the businesses that should be offering you these systems don't want to bother because the markup they want to charge for the trivial changes needed to the standard systems prices it out of the nascent market.

"Home of the future", yea right, how about a non stone-age home HVAC system first?

*By energy-efficient I mean you can have more heating or cooling for less energy/money expenditure.**And you can, if you're up to installing it yourself.

Hell most houses aren't even wired properly as it is. For example, in places that need winter heating you can't realistically ditch natural gas without a 200 amp service and in a lot of neighborhoods you can't get one. Then there's fios, and that isn't coming to everyone any time soon.

Guys, 2020 is less than 8 years away. How many of you are going to replace all of your appliances in that time? If you do, how many of you are going to spring for the "smart" appliance, that for the most part isn't even available yet? There's not even a standard for smart appliances, nor a particularly clear vision of what they would do to be considered smart.

I'm firmly in the pessimist camp on this one, unless the manufacturers really get their butts in gear in the next couple of years and define some standards and start pumping out appliances to meet those standards in record time. It's not that hard to stick a wifi antenna in a fridge, but it is hard to do anything useful with it. Also, you're going to hate it in 5 years when it's dragging down the speed of your network and preventing you from using the latest security standards because it's old and dumb.

See http://www.homeclimatecontrol.com/ and http://diy-zoning.sourceforge.net/. You could EASILY have tight, reliable, energy-efficient*, per-room climate control for your home or apartment**. This kind of system is either extremely sub-standard or nonexistent commercially mostly because it's TOO CHEAP and the businesses that should be offering you these systems don't want to bother because the markup they want to charge for the trivial changes needed to the standard systems prices it out of the nascent market.

"Home of the future", yea right, how about a non stone-age home HVAC system first?

*By energy-efficient I mean you can have more heating or cooling for less energy/money expenditure.**And you can, if you're up to installing it yourself.

It isn't exactly trivial to install per-room dampners in an existing house.

I think the smart home kinda sneaks up on you. I'll not go into my pro-broadband rant (see South Carolina article for that) but I will say I have a giant pipe going to my residence. As a result, and I hadn't thought about it till I read this article, my poor old router (I prob. need to upgrade) nearly has all the port forwarding options filled. I have a handful of devices that I access at home that I communicate with from work. Including a few I'll not get into, I've a synology NAS box that I use for for a lot of things as well. Such as:

I'm hosting my own domain. Saves cash.

I've enabled cloud software so I can sync certain files from a central location and automatically update across workstations both at the office and home. Don't need to pay for a hosting service. Saves cash.

I run a surveillance suite so I can monitor my house and garage automatically while I'm away. If it detects motion anywhere I get an email alert and a picture sent to my phone. Saves cash on security.

I can stream movies to work ummmm.... during lunch break.

I operate an FTP server for the family and extended family.

All kinds of stuff. Can't communicate with the refrigerator yet to see if the milk is still in date, but maybe soon.

How about per-room motorized registers? It's not "ideal", but it's "better than what you have now".

I've never seen one of those, but would love a link of where to buy them. The biggest problem I can think of, not knowing of any physical restrictions, is the lack of power and signal wires in the send and return registers.

It's completely unrealistic. The only smart appliance of any practical benefit is a power management device that tells the rest of the house to shut down when there are no occupants in the building. Beyond that, most smart homes are a pipe dream.

The concept of going to the grocery store to buy ingredients for a particular meal falls flat when you consider that your fridge and pantry only know what is in them if you spent the time to inventory them every time you put food in or took it out. And how many people are going to be OCD enough to get their entire family to keep track of something that creates more work for them on their quest for food.

I see much more use for things like in-wall speakers from Amina as a way of reducing clutter, or Kinspans Optim R insulation that can dramatically increase thermal insulation in just 3cm, or heat recovery ventilation systems, passive houses, self cleaning windows, etc.

Smart houses? Seems like it would make my house even harder to maintain instead of easier. I want my house to be warm,dry,spacious but above all hassle free.

How about per-room motorized registers? It's not "ideal", but it's "better than what you have now".

I've never seen one of those, but would love a link of where to buy them. The biggest problem I can think of, not knowing of any physical restrictions, is the lack of power and signal wires in the send and return registers.

I look into home automation every few years. Bleah. Fragmented standards, unimpressive and poor hardware selection and grotty, platform specific software.

What I simply want is remote devices that talk via wifi and just respond to properly formatted command strings, including a simple broadcast discovery command. Then people can buy prerolled controllers and software (PC, Mac, Linux, some wall mounted unit with embedded software, etc.), or write their own software in any language on any platform.

My only problem with the article is the 'efficient use of bandwidth' listed as one of the consumables....So I guess streaming causes global warming now, huh? Being that more people are 'cutting the cord', and going to online-only streaming, like Hulu, Netflix, etc?

I mean, as an internal network this 'Home of the Future' probably wouldn't need to curtail bandwidth use, but combine them all communicating over the Internet, and well, I can see why you'd want to limit, or conserve your bandwidth usage.....If only the incumbents had kept building out their infrastructures, this might not have been much of a problem to consider.

I wonder what Walt Disney et all would imagine as the 'Home of the Future' from 2011/2012. They start with the home of Today, and envision another 50 years in the future from now. Probably still looks the same in reality, but their version? I can only pretend there are plenty of pastels, lights everywhere, and rounded corners (OH NO HERE COMES APPLE!!!!)......

This is all fun and geeky, but a cost analysis has never favored adding technology.

The only reason I care so much about all of this is that I want to unlock all the data tied up in these machines.

Seeing what my house is drawing, isolating it to specific machines in my house, and making adjustments in my behavior to minimize the draw and then see immediate results in my costs... that's worth something to me. A number can't improve unless it's watched.

But until it's cheaper to get those systems installed and working than it is to just run my stuff whenever I want to, it's not in the budget. Simple as that.

Now, then. Who wants to help me start up a company that builds turnkey embedded web servers for appliance manufacturers? I can do this shit with Arduino now for $50. There's no reason GE can't put a compact wifi module with TCP/IP, zeroconf, and a little web server into a dishwasher for far less than that.

My damn printer can tell me when it's low on ink, but I have to get out of my chair and go out to the garage to know when my laundry is done? And it's 2012?

Most of what gets referred to in the 'smart' house doesn't seem to reach very far beyond controlling if things are on or off. And to be honest, the potential efficiencies there are not that great. Yes, turning your lights off in empty rooms would save some money. But it's not hard to turn lights off yourself, and switching to CFL or LED bulbs saves a lot more. An LED bulb left on by accident will use less electricity than an incandescent which is only on when it's needed in most cases. HVAC is similar. The way to save money with HVAC is better insulation and windows. Trying to micro-manage the thermostat will save a little, but not as much.

What will be exciting, and will change the way we interact with our house, is robotics. When my 'smart' kitchen can fix meals for me and clean up rather than just displaying a recipe, that will be progress. I don't want a vacuum that orders new bags online when it's full. I want a vacuum that vacuums the house itself (yes I know about the Roomba but they are not actually very self-sufficient.)

Why would I invenst tens of thousands in "smart" home equipment that will be obsolete within a few years with no hope of easy upgrade? Has anyone actually tried to rewire a north american house? Building codes and designs are just not intended to be upgradable short of re'n're, remove and redo.

You've made a good and bad point at the same time, I think. The reason the changes will be slow is the difficulty to upgrade old constructions like you mention. Regarding obsolescence, if it still works and still saves you money for the life of your house, how is it ever obsolete? Newer/better options does not make something obsolete.

The fact that every year there are more efficient A/C units available isn't going to prevent you from buying the most efficient one available at the time you need it.

I think you're spot on with why adoption will be slow, if the technology is best integrated at construction, it's going to be a long time until it's ubiquitous. Even cat5e terminating at RJ-45 in every room is not standard in new constructions yet for most builders, they almost all offer the option, but some people don't see the usefulness of it yet.

There are many things I wish our house could do, like automatically utilizing ventilation instead of A/C when the outside temperature is lower than our set point. Unless there is a non-wired standard for any smart-home tech, it's going to take a long time.

I look into home automation every few years. Bleah. Fragmented standards, unimpressive and poor hardware selection and grotty, platform specific software.

What I simply want is remote devices that talk via wifi and just respond to properly formatted command strings, including a simple broadcast discovery command. Then people can buy prerolled controllers and software (PC, Mac, Linux, some wall mounted unit with embedded software, etc.), or write their own software in any language on any platform.

Is it kickstarter time?

This just popped up on the Cocoontech forums. I don't know whether it will "respond to properly formatted command strings" but it does use wifi (or ethernet). Might be something to look at.

Personally I'm not so sure I want my devices directly on the network. That approach seems like each device has to have its own security, which needs to be updated when holes are found. It's not practical to update every module in the system, unless it can be done remotely, in which case that capability is also a point of attack. By having a parallel system (not IP at all), I only have to protect the one device that bridges it to the network. I use Insteon and there are good networked controllers for it (e.g. the ISY-99), although personally I've written my own software for it instead.

Sounds like a job for Apple: make some easy-to-use, albeit pricey, smart appliances that look cool and integrate with their other stuff. Then once it's a 'thing' in consumers' minds, other manufacturers will step in with lower-cost alternatives to spread the stuff to the masses.

this morning, I thought about how nice it'd be if you could do a "universal search" to find misplaced items in your home. for example, you would type "duster" on a device to find out where you placed the feather duster--"lint" for lint brush, or you could search for a physical book, DVD, CD etc.

but then I started thinking about the privacy implications, would someone be able to wardrive your house and learn what you own?

what type of technology could be used? NFC? Bluetooth? Wifi? how would it be powered? is it better if the devices are short range (~15 feet)?

this morning, I thought about how nice it'd be if you could do a "universal search" to find misplaced items in your home. for example, you would type "duster" on a device to find out where you placed the feather duster--"lint" for lint brush, or you could search for a physical book, DVD, CD etc.

but then I started thinking about the privacy implications, would someone be able to wardrive your house and learn what you own?

what type of technology could be used? NFC? Bluetooth? Wifi? how would it be powered? is it better if the devices are short range (~15 feet)?

RFID has a reasonably short range and doesn't require power on the item to be tracked, just a passive tag. When you bring all that data together and put it in a net-accessible location (e.g. so you can search it on your smartphone), that location becomes the vulnerable spot. Not more or less than other data on your network though, like IP cameras etc.

The smart, connected home is probably one of the most overhyped "movements" I think I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong, the videos are interesting and it's always cool to dream but really the point of why we even need this is often overlooked. Really, why does it matter how connected my home is? The ip-enabled thermostat? Cool. I can see real, practical uses for that. The ip-connected fridge/oven/etc.? Don't care. At all. Maybe I just haven't been sold on it but really, just make my fridge efficient, able to hold what I want it to hold, and not be prone to breaking down (ice makers come to mind). I don't need to know what I'm almost out of, I already know that. I don't need to see what would constitute a good meal for the night based on the ingredients at hand. That's part of the fun of going to the store. Get an idea, go grab the stuff, and go from there. No technology needed. Hell I still use real cook books. just make sure my oven doesn't burn my food and I'm a happy camper. The less each appliance I have has to rely on a connected network the better.

I do appreciate connected audio/video/internet but to me that's in a totally different realm from what people think a "smart home" should be. You can have a dumb home and have a very sophisticated audio/video/inet system. The two don't need to go hand in hand. I have a pretty decent home network with multiple computers, mobile devices, game systems, and file servers all working together to give me what I want when I want it but it's just entertainment. There's no real benefit to my life outside of being entertained. I see no reason to make it anything beyond that.

Now, if we're talking about a time when your walls can act as a video screen with sound like in Back to the Future 2, then we're on. Same with the hydrated pizza. That's some cool shit. Oh and I want a fax in my hall closet.

Why would I invenst tens of thousands in "smart" home equipment that will be obsolete within a few years with no hope of easy upgrade? Has anyone actually tried to rewire a north american house? Building codes and designs are just not intended to be upgradable short of re'n're, remove and redo.

The fact that people think this tells me how poor our approach to engineering and technology is today.

What would you expect to become obsolete in a system that determines the best time for appliances to run and records when they run, how long, and how much resources they used? Do you think you'll get a retina display and that will be a worthy upgrade for your washing machine?

I'd be happy if I had a house that had RJ45 connections in every room.

My parents do have a condo with RJ45, but they're not tech-savvy and the broadband router is far from the service closet into which all of the cables go into, so they don't know how to hook it up themselves. Not that it would be worth it for them, since they only have one device that hooks up to the Internet: a laptop.

But my point is, if we can't even get RJ45 connectors into every room then smart is a little bit out there in the future.

Why would I invenst tens of thousands in "smart" home equipment that will be obsolete within a few years with no hope of easy upgrade? Has anyone actually tried to rewire a north american house? Building codes and designs are just not intended to be upgradable short of re'n're, remove and redo.

The fact that people think this tells me how poor our approach to engineering and technology is today.

What would you expect to become obsolete in a system that determines the best time for appliances to run and records when they run, how long, and how much resources they used? Do you think you'll get a retina display and that will be a worthy upgrade for your washing machine?

Not that type of obselecence. I expect that in a few years when I add/replace some device in my house that the protocol or feature set revision will have changed to make it incompatible with the rest of the house. Maybe there are cross manufacturer incompatibilities, or vendor lock in...

If RFID tags get cheap enough, I can see real value to putting RFID tags with information on expiration date/etc on certain groceries and then having the fridge keep (a crude) inventory.

But apart from specific things, I don't see a lot of value in currently-possible things. Technology excels when it reduces the amount of work (drudgery) people do. That is not currently the case for most things people talk about putting into homes.

I don't have a smart fridge; I have a pad of paper next to it on which I write items I need to buy on my next grocery / Walmart run.

Where I'd like to see an improvement is in "vampire power" reduction. Whether it be electronics in standby mode waiting for me to turn them on via a remote or wall-warts which I've left plugged in; there's no reason these items have to consume more than a trivial amount of power.

Curt Hopkins / Curt writes for Ars Technica about the intersection of culture and technology, including the democratization of information, spaceships, robots, the theatre, archaeology, achives and free speech.